diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1a1eb3f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+# akshara
+
+A simple system builder and immutability layer.
+
+## Development
+
+To test a modified copy of `akshara`, run the following on a working blendOS install:
+
+```sh
+umount -l /usr && sudo mv ./akshara /usr/bin/akshara && sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/akshara
+```
+
+Replace `./akshara` with wherever your modified copy of `akshara` is.
+
+⚠ **ANY CHANGES TO `/usr/bin/akshara` WILL BE REVERTED AFTER EVERY UPDATE!** ⚠
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/akshara b/akshara
index 685c272..2cd3f2f 100755
--- a/akshara
+++ b/akshara
@@ -19,15 +19,11 @@
 
 import os
 import sys
-import time
 import yaml
-import shutil
 import filecmp
 import argparse
 import requests
-import platform
 import fasteners
-from threading import Event
 import subprocess
 
 __version = '1.0.0'
@@ -136,34 +132,44 @@ def update_system():
     with open('/system.yaml') as blend_release_file:
         blend_release = yaml.load(
             blend_release_file, Loader=yaml.FullLoader)
+        
+
+
+        # TODO: Add check that all packages actually exist        
 
         info('downloading Arch tarball...')
 
+        # TODO: currently it errors if it doesn't have arch-repo anyways, so this doesn't need any extra checking, maybe add a check for that later though
+        # The mirror to use for downloading the bootstrap image
+        # For example, for the Arch mirror at mirrors.acm.wpi.edu, you'd use https://mirrors.acm.wpi.edu/archlinux
+        # Not sure why this wouldn't just use `arch-repo` but whatever
+        bootstrap_mirror = blend_release.get("arch-repo")
+
         if not os.path.isfile('/.update.tar.zst'):
-            if exec('wget', '-q', '--show-progress', 'https://geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/iso/latest/archlinux-bootstrap-x86_64.tar.zst', '-O', '/.update.tar.zst') != 0:
+            if exec('wget', '-q', '--show-progress', f'{bootstrap_mirror}/iso/latest/archlinux-bootstrap-x86_64.tar.zst', '-O', '/.update.tar.zst') != 0:
                 warn('failed download')
                 print()
                 info('trying download again...')
                 print()
                 exec('rm', '-f', '/.update.tar.zst')
-                if exec('wget', '-q', '--show-progress', 'https://geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/iso/latest/archlinux-bootstrap-x86_64.tar.zst', '-O', '/.update.tar.zst') != 0:
+                if exec('wget', '-q', '--show-progress', f'{bootstrap_mirror}/iso/latest/archlinux-bootstrap-x86_64.tar.zst', '-O', '/.update.tar.zst') != 0:
                     error('failed download')
                     print()
                     error('update failed')
                     sys.exit(50)
 
-        if exec('bash', '-c', 'sha256sum -c --ignore-missing <(wget -qO- https://geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/iso/latest/sha256sums.txt | sed "s/archlinux-bootstrap-x86_64\\.tar\\.zst/.update.tar.zst/g") 2>/dev/null') != 0:
+        if exec('bash', '-c', f'sha256sum -c --ignore-missing <(wget -qO- {bootstrap_mirror}/iso/latest/sha256sums.txt | sed "s/archlinux-bootstrap-x86_64\\.tar\\.zst/.update.tar.zst/g") 2>/dev/null') != 0:
             error('failed checksum verification')
             print()
             info('trying download again...')
             exec('rm', '-f', '/.update.tar.zst')
-            if exec('wget', '-q', '--show-progress', 'https://geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/iso/latest/archlinux-bootstrap-x86_64.tar.zst', '-O', '/.update.tar.zst') != 0:
+            if exec('wget', '-q', '--show-progress', f'{bootstrap_mirror}/iso/latest/archlinux-bootstrap-x86_64.tar.zst', '-O', '/.update.tar.zst') != 0:
                 error('failed download')
                 print()
                 error('update failed')
                 sys.exit(50)
                 return
-            if exec('bash', '-c', 'sha256sum -c --ignore-missing <(wget -qO- https://geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/iso/latest/sha256sums.txt | sed "s/archlinux-bootstrap-x86_64\\.tar\\.zst/.update.tar.zst/g") 2>/dev/null') != 0:
+            if exec('bash', '-c', f'sha256sum -c --ignore-missing <(wget -qO- {bootstrap_mirror}/iso/latest/sha256sums.txt | sed "s/archlinux-bootstrap-x86_64\\.tar\\.zst/.update.tar.zst/g") 2>/dev/null') != 0:
                 error('failed checksum verification')
                 print()
                 error('update failed')
@@ -196,9 +202,7 @@ def update_system():
             'blend-files'
         ]
 
-        keep = [
-            '/usr/share'
-        ]
+        persistent_files = []
 
         if (type(blend_release.get('impl')) == str and
             type(blend_release.get('track')) != 'custom'):
@@ -224,6 +228,9 @@ def update_system():
         if type(blend_release.get('user-services')) == list:
             user_services += blend_release.get('user-services')
 
+        if type(blend_release.get('persistent-files')) == list:
+            persistent_files += blend_release.get('persistent-files')
+
         exec_chroot('rm', '-f', '/.new_rootfs/etc/resolv.conf')
 
         with open('/.new_rootfs/etc/resolv.conf', 'w') as pacman_mirrorlist_conf:
@@ -233,7 +240,7 @@ def update_system():
             if type(blend_release.get('arch-repo')) == str:
                 pacman_mirrorlist_conf.write(f'Server = {blend_release.get("arch-repo")}/$repo/os/$arch\n')
             else:
-                pacman_mirrorlist_conf.write('Server = https://cloudflaremirrors.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch\n')
+                pacman_mirrorlist_conf.write('Server = https://geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/$repo/os/$arch\n')
 
         exec_chroot('mkdir', '-p', '/var/cache/pacman/pkg')
         exec_chroot('rm', '-rf', '/var/cache/pacman/pkg')
@@ -243,23 +250,15 @@ def update_system():
         exec_chroot('pacman-key', '--init')
         exec_chroot('pacman-key', '--populate')
 
-        counter = 0
-        while True:
-            return_val = exec_chroot('pacman', '-Sy', '--ask=4', 'reflector')
-            counter += 1
-            if counter > 30:
-                error('failed to download packages')
-                exit(50)
-            if return_val == 0:
-                break
-
-        exec_chroot('reflector', '--latest', '5', '--protocol', 'https', '--sort', 'rate', '--save', '/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist')
+        exec_chroot('sh', '-c', 'mkdir /tmp/rate-mirrors/; cd /tmp/rate-mirrors/; curl -LO $(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/westandskif/rate-mirrors/releases/latest | grep "browser_download_url.*rate-mirrors-v.*-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz" | cut -d : -f 2,3 | tr -d \\")')
+        exec_chroot('bash', '-c', 'cd /tmp/rate-mirrors/; tar -xzf rate-mirrors*; cd $(find /tmp/rate-mirrors/ -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d); ./rate_mirrors --disable-comments-in-file --entry-country=US --protocol=https arch --max-delay 7200 | sudo tee /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist')
 
         #exec_chroot('sed', 's/#//g', '-i', '/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist')
         #exec_chroot('bash', '-c', 'grep "^Server =" /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist > /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.tmp; mv /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.tmp /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist')
 
         with open('/.new_rootfs/etc/pacman.conf', 'r') as original: data = original.read()
         with open('/.new_rootfs/etc/pacman.conf', 'w') as modified: modified.write(data.replace("[options]", "[options]\nParallelDownloads = 32\n"))
+        with open('/.new_rootfs/etc/pacman.conf', 'w') as modified: modified.write(data.replace("#[multilib]\n#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist", "[multilib]\nInclude = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist"))
 
         with open('/.new_rootfs/etc/pacman.conf', 'a') as pacman_conf:
             pacman_conf.write(f'''
@@ -292,6 +291,7 @@ Server = {package_repo["repo-url"]}
 
         counter = 0
         while True:
+            print('running packages again')
             return_val = exec_chroot('pacman', '-S', '--ask=4', *packages)
             counter += 1
             if counter > 30:
@@ -303,6 +303,7 @@ Server = {package_repo["repo-url"]}
         counter = 0
         if aur_packages != []:
             while True:
+                print('running aur_packages again')
                 exec_chroot('useradd', '-m', '-G', 'wheel', '-s', '/bin/bash', 'aur')
                 exec_chroot('bash', '-c', 'echo "aur ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL" > /etc/sudoers.d/aur')
                 return_val = exec_chroot(
@@ -326,6 +327,12 @@ Server = {package_repo["repo-url"]}
             if type(user_service) is str:
                 exec_chroot('systemctl', 'enable', '--global', user_service)
 
+        for persistent_file in persistent_files:
+            if type(persistent_file) is str:
+                if os.path.exists(persistent_file):
+                    exec('mkdir', '-p',  '/.new_rootfs/'+ os.path.dirname(persistent_file))
+                    exec('cp', persistent_file, '/.new_rootfs/'+ persistent_file)
+
         if type(blend_release.get('commands')) == list:
             for command in blend_release.get('commands'):
                 if type(command) == str:
@@ -402,7 +409,8 @@ Server = {package_repo["repo-url"]}
         exec('cp', '-ax', '/.new_rootfs/var/lib/pacman', '/.new.var.lib/pacman')
 
         exec('mv', '.new_rootfs', '.update_rootfs')
-        exec('cp', '-ax', '/.update_rootfs/etc', '/.update_rootfs/usr/etc')
+        # don't move /etc/shells to /usr/etc
+        exec('bash', '-c', 'shopt -s extglob; cd /.update_rootfs/etc; cp -ax !(shells)  /.update_rootfs/usr/etc; cd -')
 
         new_boot_files = []
 
@@ -491,3 +499,10 @@ try:
         command()
 except KeyboardInterrupt:
     error('aborting')
+    # remove update and akshara stuff if the program is exited
+    exec('rm', '-rf', '/.new_rootfs/')
+    exec('rm', '-rf', '/.update_rootfs')
+    # it's basically impossible to ^C before akshara has exited but after it's created this file
+    # and i don't *think* that "update" would be destructive at all (unless it failed to run and would't boot), but i don't quite understand it soooo just to be on the safe side
+    exec('rm', '-f', '/.update')
+    # TODO: add similar handling for errors, and an option to not delete stuff on error/early exit